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Planning to buy a jersey of your favorite Super Bowl team? It might be fake.

By David Migoya, Denver Post

Posted:
01/30/2014 10:39:10 AM EST

Michael Berman of Fair Lawn looks to buy a birthday present for his nephew from the selection of items being merchandised for Super Bowl XLVIII on display at Modell's. (Chris Pedota/NorthJersey.com)

Federal authorities Thursday are expected to announce the results of a massive national sweep of phony sports merchandisers selling such items as fake NFL game jerseys and counterfeit Super Bowl tickets.

The announcement by agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and NFL officials of crackdowns on the multibillion-dollar fake-sports-merchandise market has turned into an annual event, typically just before the league's premier event.

Thursday's announcement precedes Super Bowl XLVIII, to be held Sunday in East Rutherford, N.J., and is at a time of year when counterfeiting sports gear is at its zenith.

“Many of the counterfeits are really good, having the little tags that look like the right hologram, but Homeland Security agents work regularly with the experts at the NFL to spot them,” ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok said. “Some of the counterfeits are just ridiculously bad, such as when they spelled Indianapolis wrong.”

Last year, ICE and the NFL revealed the sweep had nabbed 41 people and gathered up more than $17 million in phonies — jerseys, ball caps, T-shirts, jackets and other souvenirs — and nearly $154,000 in fake tickets to the Super Bowl, the NFL's championship game.

In 2012, ICE announced it had seized nearly $5 million in fake NFL gear.

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Thursday's announcement is expected to yield even more, according to people familiar with the investigation, with seizures topping $20 million and more than 50 arrests. The Denver office of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had a hand in shutting down more than 100 websites and seizing more than $500,000 in merchandise.

Agents targeted street vendors in and around Sports Authority Field at Mile High, many of them habitual offenders, agents said.

The bulk of the fraudulent items, agents said, are manufactured in China, and the marketing is handled mostly by organized crime.

“We're finding that gangs are selling counterfeit gear on the street because it's more a profitable margin than selling drugs,” said an ICE agent who could not be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Counterfeit or knockoff merchandise is a $240 billion-a-year business, investigators say, of which sports clothing makes up a piece. And when one vendor goes down, another pops up quickly.

“When the Super Bowl was in Dallas (in 2011), we had folks going out to the site for the street vendors, the ones operating out of the trunks of cars, and it was one after another,” he said. “One guy actually was wearing 30 or 40 jerseys and just peeled them off as he sold them.”

Experts note there's a distinct difference between counterfeit merchandise that infringes on a patent, trademark or copyright, and items that are simply capitalizing on a trend or appeal.

“Peyton Manning shirts are the big thing, a ton of those,” said Patrick Lechleitner, assistant special agent in charge for ICE's Homeland Security Investigations that worked on the seizures.

When Tim Tebow was the rage in town, dozens of local entrepreneurs stepped up with T-shirts fashioned to show off the quarterback's praying posture.

“Tebowing symbols didn't infringe anything,” Lechleitner said. “On a lot of that stuff, we're blessed to have a society that allows for some artistic representation, so unless it's actually licensed, it's probably fine.”

The same is true of Manning's offensive-line audibles: “Omaha! Omaha!” and “Hurry! Hurry!” Placing the words onto an orange T-shirt is as recognizable as a generic Hula Hoop — but doesn't put the seller into any danger. That would include the number 18 on anything orange.

“Sports is part of popular culture, so 'Omaha! Omaha!' can't really be trademarked,” said Marty Brochstein, senior vice president of industry relations and information for the Licensing Industry Merchandisers' Association. “And unless the Broncos have trademarked a particular shade of orange, as long as it's not using registered marks, such as the team name, it's pretty much staying clear of infringements.”

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